Review by Eleanor J. Bader

Michigan State University professor Josh Cowen’s The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers is a potent indictment of the role school vouchers play in undermining public education. It’s a timely, insightful, and enraging book.

Cowen reports that the push for vouchers – which enable children to attend private schools with public dollars – began in 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education was decided. Fearful of court-ordered school desegregation, a slew of white parents sought ways to keep their children out of mixed classrooms. They were soon aided by racist legislators and theorists, including economist Milton Friedman, who helped them strategize. As fears about public school safety ramped up, their efforts picked up speed with eleven states currently providing universal school vouchers to any family that wants them.

That number, Cowen writes, is likely to rise.

This, despite the program’s consistent failure to prepare kids for academic progress – as measured by standardized test scores. But low grades don’t faze voucher proponents, a deeply connected network of donors (the Bradley, DeVos, Koch, Walton, and Olin funds) that dovetail with conservative political groups (The Heritage Foundation and Manhattan Institute), grassroots community activists, and professors from prestigious universities. All favor privatized education as well as book bans, censored curricula, and the enactment of anti-LGBTQIA policies.

Cowen’s analysis of how vouchers have fed into this broader conservative agenda makes it essential reading for supporters of public education. If being forewarned allows us to be forearmed, The Privateers elucidates the many challenges ahead and suggests ways to successfully resist the right’s game plan.

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The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers by Josh Cowen. Harvard Education Press, September, 2024.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools edited by Royel M. Johnson and Shaun R. Harper addresses the ways that the U.S. right-wing has distorted and manipulated facts about how history and culture are taught.

This thirteen-essay collection harkens back to 2019 when scholar Nikole Hannah Jones launched the 1619 Project, a multimedia effort highlighting enslaved people’s vital contributions to U.S. economic and social development.

Not everyone was pleased with this message and white conservatives and Christian nationalists wasted no time in attempting to mute its impact as an educational tool: Since January 2021, eighteen states have passed limits on public school teaching – pre-K to university level – about race and racism. Gender, gender identity, and ways to fight oppression have also captured attention – and have been similarly banned. In addition to legislative attacks, the backlash has spawned “parents’ rights” groups to oppose student exposure to Critical Race Theory (CRT) in their classrooms.

But why all this momentum?

As The Big Lie makes clear, few educators teach this material. Moreover, the anthology challenges the idea that lessons about race or gender are “divisive” and contests the notion that such topics cause white (and male) students to experience “reverse discrimination.” This anti-racist and pro-democracy perspective makes the book essential reading for activists, teachers, researchers, and students.

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The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools edited by Royel M. Johnson and Shaun R. Harper. Harvard Education Press, September 2024.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

School Communities of Strength: Strategies for Education Children Living in Deep Poverty, long-time teacher-researcher Peter W. Cookson’s latest book, is a forthright call to political leaders to end the continued scourge of American poverty. He defines this as having an annual income of $15,000 or less for a household of four, a condition that typically catapults whole families into homelessness and hunger.

Predictably, poverty and want cause children’s schooling to suffer, making the promise of an equal education little more than a pipedream. But poverty is not inevitable, and Cookson offers strategies not only for eradicating it but for meeting the needs of “the whole child.” This, he writes, starts with the belief that every student can learn and then zeroes in on the material resources that support their abilities, from free school meals to computer access, from safe, secure, and habitable school buildings to onsite medical and psychological care for kids and the adults they live with.

In addition, Cookson argues that ending poverty requires an understanding that penury is a policy choice. “Giving people crumbs that fall off the table of influence is not the same as empowering people with real education, real jobs, and real dignity,” he concludes.

School Communities of Strength is a potent directive for policymakers, educators, and those who care about children and families.

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School Communities of Strength: Strategies for Education Children Living in Deep Poverty, Peter W. Cookson, Jr. Foreword by David C. Berliner. Harvard Education Press, April 2024.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Guest Post by Eleanor J. Bader

In Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education, longtime education activist and teacher Tom Roderick argues that the primary role of schools today is to create ecologically-conscious students who are “courageous, intelligent, and wise fighters for social justice.” Indeed, as environmental degradation becomes more-and-more apparent, Roderick writes that the need to protect the earth should be woven into every academic discipline, pre-K through high school.

Thanks to numerous school-based examples and interviews, Teach for Climate Justice merges concrete scientific information about the crisis with a how-to on community organizing that zeroes in on the power of collective action to build momentum for change. The result is inspiring.

It’s also intersectional, linking efforts to win human and civil rights with campaigns for environmental justice. Throughout, the text highlights pollution’s disproportionate impact on communities of color. Moreover, it names the culprits–corporations that promote endless economic growth and lawmakers who do their bidding.

But how to force a reckoning with them?

Roderick argues that this existential question is foundational, if still unanswered. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic: Since 90 percent of US children attend public schools, he believes that students can learn to push back against climate deniers, develop personal agency, and foster respect between people and Mother earth. A compendium of resources is included to aid teachers in these efforts.

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Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education by Tom Roderick. Harvard Education Press, June 2023.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.